no respect for spring

[Pxtl]

Well, to me, it seems like having two lobbies would be appropriate (or two execution modes for the same lobby). One lobby is the game-specific-lobby, which defaults to the game's chat channel, and shows only the specific game's battlerooms (and any mutators thereof). No ads for other games.

The other would be the Spring lobby, which would default to Main, show battle-rooms for all Spring games, and have a sidebar of ads for Spring games to DL.

After all, if Smoth or Argh promote outside of the community, they're gonna take one look at the lobby full of BA games and say "WTF, this isn't what I downloaded???". Alternately, in the main room, you want people to see the full gamut of software available for Spring.

Either way, lobby talk is kinda moot - without single-player it's somewhat futile to advertise a most hard-to-learn smaller mods.

[KDR_11k]

Vadi: No matter how great your website most people will still ask in #main. Why? Because they go straight for the download link and ignore anything else on the website, if that doesn't work they'll get irritated immediately and start asking why it doesn't work (especially since they're in a chat room where you can easily talk).

[Vadi]

Not quite.

For example, if the website is http://www.spring1944.com, and it has the Spring1944 logo on top, the installer they use has Spring1944.com everywhere in it, it installs the mod, and says "Enjoy playing Spring 1944!" at the end, when they open their lobby client, click on 'Online Play', and see both BA and 1944 hosts (important!), ... they join a 1944 game.

(the above is an example of course)

Yes, they'll get curious, and play BA games too. But there's nothing wrong with that, because it's now for the mod itself to make it "it's regular".

[DemO]

Simple fact of the matter is that once a mod/game is released on Spring that is better than TA mods people will flock to play it. Saying that the Spring community only like TA is IMO just an excuse for why certain projects have failed to grasp a solid playerbase. Obviously there are other reasons as well but there are a few contender projects in development right now that actually have the potential to push the current TA dominated playerbase on to something new.

No disrespect intended towards those who have developed and released other projects on Spring to date, but with the exception of EE, I dont think there have been any mods/games that are close to contending with the quality and depth of gameplay of TA mods. TA sets the bar high, TA in 3D even higher, and TA in 3D with a load of effort put into balance changes even higher again.

The bar is so high infact that most projects developed by a small number of people, unpaid in their free time should NOT actually expect to be better than TA or its mods.

[KDR_11k]

Nonsense. "Better" is in part subjective and depends on what you expect. People who expect TA-like gameplay won't see something as better if it's e.g. StarCraft simply because the expectations they have differ from what they get.

[Machiosabre]

so? what does that matter, so its not subjectively better to the player base its trying to impress, same thing.

[KDR_11k]

Because he said it in a way that suggests a game is objectively worse.

[DemO]

Nonsense. "Better" is in part subjective and depends on what you expect. People who expect TA-like gameplay won't see something as better if it's e.g. StarCraft simply because the expectations they have differ from what they get.

Yes there is certainly truth in this, but its not so black and white as people make out IMO. Most gamers tend to have a wide range of different titles varying across several different genre's, styles, gameplay mechanics etc.

Kernel Panic is an example of something that is very different from TA in many regards yet still had a lot of interest for a short time when released. Simple fact is that the game didn't have the depth of gameplay to carry a playerbase and maintain it for a long period of time. It gets boring quite quickly, or rather players prefer to play it only occasinoally rather than every day or two.

[Neddie]

Nonsense. "Better" is in part subjective and depends on what you expect. People who expect TA-like gameplay won't see something as better if it's e.g. StarCraft simply because the expectations they have differ from what they get.

Yes there is certainly truth in this, but its not so black and white as people make out IMO. Most gamers tend to have a wide range of different titles varying across several different genre's, styles, gameplay mechanics etc.

Kernel Panic is an example of something that is very different from TA in many regards yet still had a lot of interest for a short time when released. Simple fact is that the game didn't have the depth of gameplay to carry a playerbase and maintain it for a long period of time. It gets boring quite quickly, or rather players prefer to play it only occasinoally rather than every day or two.

It might be able to carry a player base, but not comprised of people from this community. I would play it regularly if I had people to play it with. I even ran ladder games for it.

[Warlord Zsinj]

Warlord,

I don't see any hostility towards non-TA mods in Spring, just a lack of interest. I do, however, see all kinds of hostility towards TA mods from content developers. Go read the Maximum Annihilation 1.0 thread to see what I mean.

Hostility does exist, just see the many threads in here about PM and #main spamming. Those are completely unprovoked - now throw some poor guy that has never heard of Spring before, that has stumbled on IW, and decides to check out the lobby. "Hi! How do I start a game of IW?" he innocently asks. "IW IS GAY PLAY BA NOOB" is the inevitable response.

And somewhat more likely, less offensive, but more insidious is the fact that initially players are likely to log on to the lobby, see a couple of IW games, perhaps none, and see 30 BA games going. Of course, they are going to check out BA. IW needs to have the hance to build up it's player base, and competing against a mod that has had effectively 10 years to build up a player base is no easy task.

Now, I realise we're all lovey dovey let's all share things and be merry here - but I'm not making IW to be a feeder of people for the popular *A mod. I want to give my mod the best chance it can have to establish its own playing community. This may force me to move to my own server, but as stated earlier, I'd much rather not do that.

What I've suggested does not prevent players that download the "packaged" IW install from finding out about BA and other mods, and including them in the 'visible mods' list, nor from joining #main - it simply would not be their default settings. We would likely then have a 'mod file' for experienced spring users who can simply dump it into their mods dir like a normal mod, and then simply see and enter IW games just as they would now. For all current players, and everyone reading this messageboard, nothing would change. We would simply be able to channel new players who have never experienced the Spring lobby before into an environment crafted for the specific mod that they have downloaded (and hence shown they want to play).

[Otherside]

i agree BA fanbois r the plague of the community they must be shot :D

and b4 any1 starts shouting im a CA fanboi...

Sure im a CA fanboi but i give every other mod a chance and play other mods

BA fanbois r just generally close minded and only play it cos they been spoon fed BA and r resistant to change and being pwned again relearning a game

[rattle]

*are, before, anyone, are, because, are
That's a D- at best.

The hostility is kind of justified. Someone throws random stuff together, tweaks stats a little, copies CA's widgets and gadgets and then expects to earn some respect in return. For what?

[[Krogoth86]]

The hostility is kind of justified. Someone throws random stuff together, tweaks stats a little, copies CA's widgets and gadgets and then expects to earn some respect in return. For what?

Well I see no reason for hostility. Not paying attention and not caring yes - but hostility? Even if someone would just do some text tweaks (btw if your list should be a side blow towards MA I lol) that's no reason to get insulted or being faced with lots of aggression without real reason...

[Warlord Zsinj]

I don't think rattle was saying it was a good thing, simply giving a reason why it happens.

[AF]

Eventually I plan for aflobby to have content profiles. These profiles will override the 'main' profile and can specify things like channels to join or not join at startup, initial filters, the mod to play, the engine version to use, extra GUI buttons and widgets (assuming Ive implemented widgets), the default GUI looknfeel/theme, extra imagery for branding, any drop in replacements for controls such as a customized splash/starting screen

And so on. This way the installer can drop a shortcut to aflobby with a custom icon and a profile config file name as a parameter. The player could switch profiles in their settings to choose other games or pick the main profile for a more generic view.

BA players should be going to the BA website to get spring+BA. That they're using the spring engine website is a testament to BAs neglect of their duties outside of the actual content archive itself. Modding doesn't end at the sdz file it carries on to the website, the advertisement, the installers, the howtos, the guides etc.

And almost every content package is guilty of this to varying degrees.


Your also forgetting that while in a shared community people might randomly try your mod, this advantage is tiny compared to the gigantic disadvantage of the more popular mods pushing you out and stealing your user base.

[Erom]

Excellent post, AF. These "content profiles" you mention sound like a pretty good way of managing things.

Of course, you can't rag on content creators too much for focusing on the interesting, difficult, and fun parts of content creation over the boring parts like website and advertising - small teams, volunteers, ect. ect.

[Vadi]

Doesn't hurt to ask someone else to do it though...

[AF]

If a game engine company is composed of a manager a marketer and an artist, do they complain when the publisher asks where the engine is going to come from? Or do they advertize for programmers?

There are teams working on content here at spring. Zero effort is being put into recruiting vacancies for missing parts such as media, websites, marketing, AI, basically everything outside the sdz/sd7 archive. There are the exceptions but this is the norm. They're not being asked personally to do it themselves, they're just being asked to get it done, be that by finding the time to do it or by recruiting new people to fill the gap.

[SwiftSpear]

BA players should be going to the BA website to get spring+BA. That they're using the spring engine website is a testament to BAs neglect of their duties outside of the actual content archive itself. Modding doesn't end at the sdz file it carries on to the website, the advertisement, the installers, the howtos, the guides etc.

I don't think BA does now, or ever really has seen itself as full scale game or even mod project. It's a balancing tweak of AA, it never really intended to be anything bigger. I can't really speak for noize, but I don't think BA really has any desire or need to break away from the Spring distribution sites or the spring forum.

If you're saying that since BA is currently the most popular mod in spring they therefore have the responsibility of pathing new ground for other mod teams to walk on, that's just dumb. BA Didn't do anything special to get popular and they didn't sign any contract saying they'd ever do more than tweak stats and make the mod how they want it.

[AF]

And why should it? BA is king of the hill, as far as they're concerned they dont need to advertise, they don't need a website, it is the primary mod and it enjoys this at the expense of the other mods.

BA's user base is self perpetuated by its very dominance. New users come in expecting game xyz and find BA and join BA. Essentially other mods are drawing in BA players for it. No intervention is required on BAs behalf.

Imagine it as wealth. BA and its players are swimming in a sea of self perpetuating cash. Why should they take the effort to pave the way for potential rivals when they can exert minimal effort and sit pretty? Well naturally the sea of cash has to come from somewhere and its beign funded at springs expense.

The overall monetary value of spring in this analogy is being diminished as a result over time. At some point BA will no longer have the critical mass, not because of competition but because there is no longer a large enough player base for any content to actually reach critical mass to begin with.

As such other content aspires to follow the BA model because it worked for BA, which is a huge mistake because it is not sustainable and requires primary mod status, aka toppling BA. BA's model doesn't work because it is a good model either but because it inherited its status from AA, but because it has already achieved its goal it is now self perpetuating.